Chapter 15: The Greenhouse

The greenhouse was the warmest place on the farm, so that was where the baby slept in the daytime.

The baby's mother set the carrier on the end bench every morning, in the sun, with a quilt over the rim.

The bench stood six feet from the lane fence.

I had never thought about that. I had built the fence to keep out people who could be argued with.

On Sunday I walked out at eight with two mugs of coffee for Amos.

He sat on an upturned bucket by the tomato racks, rubbing his bad knee, with his old dog asleep across his boots.

"Twenty of them in the lane," he said. "They stood there all night and never moved."

"They're waiting for the heat."

He took the mug. "You look like hell, girl."

"I'm fine."

"You burned a man in front of the whole yard."

"He was going to get a baby killed."

"I'm not arguing," Amos said. "I'd have done it myself, if you hadn't."

The baby made a small sound in the carrier.

Then the quilt moved by itself.

It took me a second to understand it. Something had reached through the chain link and taken hold of the corner.

A grey hand was pulling the quilt toward the fence, with the carrier still on it.

I heard a woman scream outside, in the yard, and I was running.

I was too far away.

Amos got there first. He dropped the mug and threw himself across the bench, and he caught the carrier by its handle and dragged it back.

The Bloomed man jammed his whole face against the wire.

His teeth closed on Amos's forearm through the mesh.

Amos did not shout. He grunted, once, and he pulled his arm free with the carrier tight against his chest.

Then I reached the fence and put both my hands on the wire.